The securing of items of equipment aboard vessels at sea is an old and notorious problem. While the danger presented by loose cargo may be greatest for large items of cargo on large vessels, the problems of uncontrolled motion and unpredictable tossing are actually greater for small boats which are significantly more susceptible to erratic wave action due to their generally reduced displacement and light mass.
The efffect upon equipment of a tossing boat is not just in the danger that the thrown equipment presents to the occupant of the vessel, but equally in the inconvenience and loss of utility created by rapidly shaking and tossing the container. This is especially true for those containers which by their nature are designed to maintain their contents in an organized state.
Quite possibly the ultimate example of an organized container is a tackle box on board a small fishing vessel for use on relatively open bodies of water and at sea. Tackle boxes are a relatively well developed form of the container art which have as their principal purpose the segregation, control and convenient presentation of relatively large numbers of small and dangerous objects which must be kept readily accessible and not jumbled together. The average fishing lure is dangerous to the user because of its sharp barbs and hooks; these same barbs and hooks can create a tangled and inseparable mess if lures are jumbled together.
For this reason, the designers of tackle boxes exhibit much ingenuity and spend much effort on designing compartmentalization and storage schemes that both separate and present the lures in an easy to find and remove manner. A tackle box additionally must make provision for the storage and dispensing the varying lengths of fishing line and leaders, components which are susceptible to tangling if intermingled or jumbled together.
Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 4,033,066 to Morcom discloses a fishing tackle box in which a plurality of open topped horizontal trays having distinct internal compartmentalization are interlocked for constructing a fish tackle box adapted to holding individual lures. U.S. Pat. No. 4,555,862 to Panesewich discloses a form of a fish tackle box which makes specific provision for a dispenser for a plurality of reels of fishing line or leader. U.S. Pat. No. 3,780,468 to Maffett discloses an internal structure particularly adapted to form separate compartments for receiving lures, including a specific material adapted to securing lures by their hooks.
The fisherman, having carefully segregated the lures into their indiviudal compartments in a fish tackle box, then sets forth on a boat which in normal use will pitch, heave, yaw and move, until the box and its contents are totally jumbled. It has therefore been apparent that compartmentalizing the lures in a fish tackle box is insufficient if the box itself is not secured within the vessel. The usual expedient of tying the box to the vessel is dependent upon there being a protrusion or cleat in the vessel to which the box can be secured. More elaborate structures include those as shown in Van Vuren, U.S. Pat. No. 1,929,833, in which telescopic extensions are provided within a box to be gripped to the rub rail of a boat to secure the box against movement during boat operations. Such an adaptation not only uses much of the internal space of a box, increasing its weight and size, but also depends upon there being a section of flat deck terminated in two rails to which the box might be secured; in other words, such a box is dependent on and adapted only to certain particular boat constructions.
More recently, U.S. Pat. No. 3,780,468 to Maffett disclosed a stackable fishing tackle box in which multiple sections are provided, at the bottom of each section are two parallel flanges which may be received in opposed channel tracks provided at the top of a section. Maffett also points out that the channel tracks can be affixed to a boat seat or some other portion of the boat to receive Maffett's box.
The great difficulty with this, as with other similar and channel and flange systems, is that a boat is subject to considerable banging in heavy use and that any such channel would be stepped upon, objects would be dropped upon it, and dirt and grime will be pushed into it. Since flanges and channels of the form of Maffett are dependent upon a tight fit for their functioning but must remain free in order for the box to be inserted, such damage renders the channel unusable.
More elaborate structures such as, for example, the interlocking "T" rail and channel shown in Care, U.S. Pat. No. 2,476,134 for securing a fare box on a bus, a similar if milder environment, are unsuitable for use on boats because of the injury producing potential of an extended permanently affixed channel when no tackle box is installed. In addition, "T" channels are susceptible, unless they are made so substantially large that they are unsuitable obstacles, to being damaged or bent so as to be unusable as an interlocking channel.